Emeralds and Pearls
by Let'sFallInLove
Summary: Pansy Parkinson says goodbye to a friend after the war.


Pansy Parkinson sat back, twirling her wand between her fingers and admiring her handiwork. Before her, the long glossy dining table was covered in bath towels, socks, lockets, pocketbooks, handkerchiefs and all sorts of other knickknacks, now monogrammed "PG" instead of "PP."

She sighed, fingering the end of a forest green bath towel. She had a very unpleasant meeting ahead of her, and filling time with menial tasks was not going to put it off forever.

"TURA!" she called shrilly, and a small girl of about thirteen with a long blond braid and resentful brown eyes peeked around the door frame. "Be an angel and put these back where they belong before our guest arrives. I need to powder my nose."

Not pausing to see if her order was followed, (she was certain it would be,) Pansy swept off to her room in search of the pearls and emeralds Greg had given her as an engagement present. Hovering at the door to the Primrose Room she darted in and shifted one of the mirrors so that it faced her favorite chair. Then she turned another to the opposite seat, so that he would see her even when he looked away.

At this point Pansy found herself dangerously close to confronting just how deeply unpleasant the situation really was, and dashed off to retrieve her jewels.

Arctura Rowle came in looking harried beneath a pile of robes and towels while Pansy was still sitting in front of her mirror, wishing she weren't ready quite so early.

"Be sure to fold and hang those!" Pansy called sharply when she heard the distinct sound our cloth hitting tiled floor in the adjacent bathroom.

"Yes Ms. Parkinson."

Pansy fidgeted and twisted her engagement ring around on her finger before giving up.

"Oh, make the elf do it and come in here. Help me pick out earrings." Arctura wasted no time in complying.

The obvious choice was the matching set of earrings Greg had given her before he proposed, but they both weighed the various attributes of at least six pairs before selecting these.

Arctura's parents had been Death Eaters and she had lost both of them in the Final Battle. Her mother had been a distant cousin of Pansy's mother so Pansy had selflessly taken her, and her considerable fortune, in.

With the Reconstruction of Hogwarts nearly complete Arctura would be starting school again in a few months, and she had been made acutely aware that someone was needed handle the finances of her books and tuition. This was not all the two girls understood but did not speak of:

The world they had been raised in was being torn apart. Now was the time when the true wizard families of Britain were just beginning the silent war for blood purity. To continue her bloodline Arctura was going to have to marry quietly as soon as she was out of school; Pansy was already doing so. Tura enthused over wedding bouquets and guest lists instead of asking how she really felt about her fiancé, and in return Pansy researched Tura's potential husbands as if this was fun and exciting rather than necessary and depressing.

Pansy spent most of her time bossing the younger girl around, and in return neither of them spoke of their dead parents, their lack of connections, or Draco Malfoy.

A silver bell on Pansy's dresser picked itself up and rang twice. Pansy felt slightly nauseous, but swept out of her chair and down the stairs without delay; not even stopping to scold Tura for loitering suspiciously around her pearls. Her legs seemed to move without her consent, and she found herself watching the portraits and couches she passed slip by as if she were a passenger on a broom and not a solid girl walking through the house she had grown up in.

At the door to the Primrose room she found she couldn't breathe. With her hand on the doorknob she found it shaking absurdly. She put it down and counted to ten.

She counted again.

An elf peeked his bulbous eyes out from behind an end table.

"Mr. Malfoy _is_ being seated in the Primrose room, Miss."

Pansy gave him a look that could have melted steel, swept open the door and stepped inside.

Draco Malfoy looked tired and haggard-unsurprising given his present straights-and his whole face flickered like a flame when Pansy walked in. She sat in her armchair and let him make small talk while she gathered her bearings.

Greg was a good friend; he was stupid enough to manipulate and simple enough to be easy to please. He would make the perfect husband for a woman who needed only money, an heir, and a new name. But he didn't have Draco's beauty, and he didn't have Draco's mind. He didn't make her laugh like Draco did, and she didn't feel special when she stood next to him.

Suddenly Pansy was finding it difficult to breathe again; as if the string of emeralds and pearls was strangling her, as if a heavy weight lay on her chest making it impossible to inhale.

Instead of Draco's voice she was hearing a thin ringing in her ears, but it didn't matter. They both knew what he was offering just by being here, and it wasn't enough.

Pansy didn't make herself breathe because she didn't trust her muscles with oxygen. If there were any strength at all left in them she would throw herself at Draco, she would run away with him. She would be tangled in his legal battles. She would be targeted by his enemies. She would _work_, she would scrimp and save with him; she would wear herself thin caring for a shoebox house with no elf to help her and they would live there together, hiding from a society that scorned them.

In moments like these, it seemed possible.

But in the silver mirror of the wall facing she didn't see a tough, hardened survivor who sacrificed everything for love. She saw a small, dark haired teenaged girl who hadn't worked a day in her life, sitting in her late mother's dress robes. She saw emeralds and pearls and a small, silver ring. She saw a little baby toted proudly between shops in Diagon Ally, and it didn't matter if that baby had blue eyes or brown; it mattered that it had a home, and a name, and a chance.

When Pansy awoke on the sitting room couch there was an elf dabbing her face anxiously with a cool, monogrammed cloth, and a wedding present from Draco.


End file.
